


Hurry Back

by vsyorkwin



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Get-Together Fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-28
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2020-07-24 02:03:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20018449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vsyorkwin/pseuds/vsyorkwin
Summary: So they were safe in some vague, temporary sense of the word. What now?





	Hurry Back

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know what you think of this! If you like it, I'll keep going, with longer chapters.

So they were safe in some vague, temporary sense of the word. Safe like a baseball player who made it to third base intact but could just as easily be struck down by an Almighty bolt of lightning before he scored a home run. 

That was Crowley’s attempt at a simile. Aziriphale thought it unsettling and perhaps a bit heavy-handed.

In any case, they were “laying low,” which was not an expression that Aziriphale was previously familiar with. 

“You’re not particularly tall to begin with,” Aziriphale informed the ex-demon, who scowled in response. “I don’t know why you think lying down will improve your chances of not being eternally tormented by the Forces of Darkness.”

“First of all... rude. Second, it’s an expression. I thought you _read_ _books?_ ” The last two words flew out of Crowley’s mouth with an enunciated snarl that Aziriphale really wanted to feel indignant about, but he quietly rather enjoyed Crowley’s half-hearted attempts at antagonizing him.

“Erm. Prophecies, epics, victorian romances, biblical texts. I’m still catching up to the twenty-first century. There’s rather a lot in the canon--”

“Okay, okay,” interrupted Crowley. “Point is. They’re still after us. They still want war, and we’re still standing in the way of it. Like…” he furrowed his brow at Aziriphale. “Like when someone wants to see an adult-rated movie at a theater, but they’re underage, and the rogue demon working the ticket counter won’t let them in.”

“That,” said Aziriphale proudly, “is _almost_ a functional simile.”

They were sitting in St. James’ Park, chatting idly about the Uncertain But Likely Unpleasant Things To Come. The day was marked by wind and sun. People were milling about, as people are wont to do. Crowley did not appear to be sweating under his admittedly very handsome leather jacket. 

They were also looking at cloud formations and sharing a gelato.

The sun shone rather conspicuously on the pair, which, Aziriphale decided, didn’t really matter. They weren’t _hiding_ , per se. He wasn’t sure what they were doing. When he expressed this confusion to Crowley, the ex-demon paused for a moment.

“I thought we were just sort of hanging out,” Crowley mumbled, curiously reserved.

“For fun?”

“Yes, alright. For fun.” Crowley gave his friend a nervous, private smile, which had a much different effect than his usual showy grins. Aziriphale felt sharply happy.

“Hmm.” Another beat. “That one looks like a dog.” Aziriphale was pointing at a northbound cloud.

“Hardly. I think it looks like you before you’ve done your hair in the morning.”

* * *

They carried on like that for a week, chatting idly over walks and on park benches, before the Uncertain But Likely Unpleasant Things To Come began to rear their very ugly heads. Which is to say, Beezlebub rose out of the St. James Park pond one morning and fancied a chat. She was covered in a thin, watery layer of pond sludge and on the whole looked appropriately terrifying. Her eyes glittered black.

“Crowley.” Her voice oozed with contempt. “We have some loose ends to tie up. We’d like to bring you in to, let’s say, clarify a couple things.” Here eyes shifted threateningly towards Aziriphale. “We can’t make you do anything, of course, but there may be certain… consequences… for noncompliance.”

Aziriphale's voice was like ice. "He's not interested."

“ _Angel_ ,” Crowly muttered, a mixture of reproval and something else entirely.

Words meant a great deal to Aziriphale. Since the Beginning, it was literature that taught Aziraphale what it meant to feel anything. Words taught him empathy. Patience. Words taught Aziraphale that in spite of their ridiculous displays of irreverence, human beings were constantly fighting, above all else, to be understood. It was through language that Aziriphale learned to pay attention to humanity’s disoriented defense of itself, a language of feeling that Heaven and Hell were both intent on ignoring. His bookshop-- really, every bookshop-- offered Aziriphale an alternative conception of goodness. The unshakeable feeling that there was a difference between Right and _right_. 

So, by now, Aziriphale thought that he understood words. The word that Crowly so frequently invoked-- _Angel_ \-- held a number of mostly harmless implications. It was a statement of fact. It was a thinly veiled insult, when what Crowley really wanted to say was: _Prude_. More recently, it was something light and unexpectedly good. A term of endearment.

But the word was always surrounded by context-- a sly jab, a suggestion, a command-- that it never lingered long in Aziriphale’s mind. 

_Shut up, angel._

_This way, angel._

_Not this time, angel._

In this moment, isolated from context, the word targeted something dense and bewildering inside Azirphale’s stomach.

 _Angel_ , loaded with care and warning. It said: _We are in this together._

That. After all this time, he didn’t understand how it was that a single word could do just that.

But the angel did not have the courage to confront this exact feeling at this exact moment, and certainly not in this exact conversation. Instead, he smiled at the demon between them, a baffling maneuver considering the general unpleasantness of Beezlebub in general (and her putrid displays of malice in particular).

“Let’s put a bookend in this conversation,” he said. Indifference, apparently, was not so hard to fake. Patience mitigated blind hatred, and Aziriphale was able to lead with a slow, even-keeled tone. “Crowley and I have dinner reservations.”

And they simply walked away because, at least for now, they simply could.

It was a nice day, in spite of it all. It often was. The two fell into an even step, forging a sense of calm in the slowness of their pace.

The future felt uncertain. It often did.

As he walked, Aziriphale’s shoes clicked against the wonderful nineteenth-century invention called concrete. The simple pleasure of a slight heel. 

He remembered Gabriel’s reluctant words: _Yes-- I like the clothes._ Angels and demons, Heaven, Hell, bureaucracy, Armageddon, and suchlike… it was all beginning to strike Aziraphale as obscenely, paradoxically human. He gave a surrendering laugh, and Crowley, who had been examining him privately ever since he up and walked away from Beezelbub, smiled in surprise.

“I don’t know what it is that you’re laughing about.”

“Oh, you _do_.”

Crowley grinned, delighted and easy. An Eastern Spot-Billed Duck floating ten feet away mistook their good humor for a promise of food and quacked for attention.


End file.
